24
Lev
I’m three days into proving my value to the Kozlov organization when Boris opens the conference room door and tells me I have a visitor.
He practically snarls it, which tells me this is not good news.
The holding area is in the basement. Two guards stand outside the door. A camera is mounted above the frame. No windows. I’ve spent time in enough rooms like this to know exactly what they’re built for, and the thought of who might be waiting inside puts too much speed in my step for Boris not to notice.
I stop cold the second I see Ruslan zip-tied to a metal chair.
A bruise is spreading across his jaw, already purple at the edges, and there’s mud streaked down the left sleeve of his coat. He sits straight-backed, wearing the look of a man who expected worse and is quietly recalculating the distance between that expectation and reality.
“You drove four hours to get yourself roughed up,” I comment.
“Four and a half.” He rolls his neck once. “There was construction outside Tula.”
I turn my attention to Boris. “Where did you pick him up?”
“Outer perimeter. The idiot just came in alone and asked to be taken to whoever was in charge. Identified himself as one of yours before we had a chance to ask.”
I turn back to Ruslan. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Where you go, I go,” he answers with a shrug, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like it’s a straightforward accounting of fact rather than the most reckless thing a man in his position could have done.
“You crossed into Kozlov territory.”
“Correct.”
“Alone and unarmed.”
“I’m aware of how I arrived, yes.”
I drag a hand over my face and buy myself two seconds. Ruslan has been my right hand for years. He’s the kind of man who works out the risk the way other people breathe—constantly, without needing to think about it.
“He’s mine,” I tell Boris. “I’ll vouch for him.”
Boris considers this long enough to make clear that the decision belongs to him and not to me. “We’ll run verification. He stays tied until it clears.”
“Understood.”
Tony’s verification takes almost an hour. Ruslan waits through all of it without complaining even once. When the ties finally come off, he rolls his wrists, accepts a cup of water someone slides across the table, and asks where the bathroom is.
He comes back looking exactly the same. Totally unbothered.
“Your father sent men to your apartment two days ago,” he says, settling back into the chair. “Frol is telling the organization you defected to the Kozlovs for a woman, which I guess is technically true, though I don’t know how he found out. There’s a price on you now. Nothing serious. More standing order than contracted work, but still, it exists.”
“How much?”
“Fourty-million rubles.”
Less than I would have set, which means my father is either managing his ego or genuinely underestimating what I’d cost to replace. I’m not sure which one I find more insulting.
He picks up a pen from the table and turns it over once in his fingers. “I know every security rotation in every Morozov facility in three districts, and I suspected that would be of interest to whoever is currently running the operation against them. Thought that might help your cause.”
Tony, who has been standing against the wall with his arms folded this entire time, looks from Ruslan to me and back again. Then he uncrosses his arms and pulls out a chair.
“Put him at the table,” he says.
